Overview
About Leifur Eiriksson
The voyager in the sagas
Leifur, also known as Leif Erikson, was the son of Eiríkur the Red. His voyages belong to the wider Norse expansion across the North Atlantic through Iceland and Greenland. The Greenlanders' Saga describes his expedition to lands west of Greenland and the naming of Vínland. The surviving narratives were written long after the journeys, so their geographical descriptions and memorable episodes require interpretation rather than acceptance as a ship's log.
What archaeology establishes
The Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland provides archaeological evidence of their presence in North America. Buildings and objects, including ironworking remains, show an actual encampment beyond Greenland. Linking that site to a particular named saga expedition is a further historical interpretation. North America already had Indigenous inhabitants: Leifur's significance concerns early European Atlantic voyaging, not the discovery of a continent without people or a history of its own.
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